- Product Designer for playful and educational experiences

Tag: silent library

Silent Library – Nipple Robot

Posted: September 19, 2011-Likes: 0-Comments: 0-Categories: Propmaking, Silent Library-Tags: robot, puppets, puppet

Someday many years from now, my grandkids will ask me "Grandpa, were you ever a television robot star?" And I will be able to honestly tell them "Yes children, I was an EVIL television robot star. I built this robot out of all sorts of odds-and-ends. A funnel, bucket, two mini plasma spheres to make [...]

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Silent Library – Toe Snap

Posted: September 17, 2011-Likes: 0-Comments: 0-Categories: Propmaking, Silent Library-Tags: willkrause, silent library, mechanisms

I built this machine to sequentially shoot a contestant in the toes with rubber bands. The mechanism works with screws which are placed around the barrel of a crank-operated winch every few degrees. As the crank is turned, the rubber bands fire off one-by-one.

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Silent Library – Pedal Pop

Posted: September 16, 2011-Likes: 0-Comments: 0-Categories: Propmaking, Silent Library-Tags: Props, willkrause, silent library

I built this five-passenger bike by cutting apart and welding together the parts from three tandem bikes, and adding a bit of black gas piping where I needed straight tubing. It actually worked too, and I was able to take it for some wobbly rides in the studio! (Though the rear seat was responsible for [...]

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Silent Library – Rear Squeeze

Posted: May 2, 2011-Likes: 0-Comments: 0-Categories: Silent Library-Tags: Props, willkrause, silent library

I welded together a pair of steel hands to squeeze contestants' behinds. The hands were pulled shut by bicycle brake cables which were tightened by spinning a crank. I covered the hands with liquid latex coated foam. The arms wear sleeves stitched together by Jessie Voris, and the lower support was re-used from a catapult [...]

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Silent Library – Spanking Chair

Posted: April 28, 2011-Likes: 0-Comments: 2-Categories: Silent Library-Tags: Props, willkrause, foam

This one was fun to make! I traced my hand, scaled it up 200% and then made a foam hand with acrylic nails from the pattern. The arm is made out of 2x4's glued together and swung with the aid of pneumatics. I scaled up a normal wooden chair 150% and built it out of [...]

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Silent Library – Creature in a Jar

Posted: April 27, 2011-Likes: 0-Comments: 2-Categories: Silent Library-Tags: foam, aliens, silent library

This one was a challenge! I made this creature out of all sorts of materials: lobster claws, doll parts, shells from the beach, latex gloves, ping-pong balls, dust masks, shark jaws, lots of latex, and a toy octopus... a real potpourri of stuff. Katie Akana thought of the pneumatic mechanism to suddenly open the creatures' [...]

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Candy Television

Posted: March 28, 2011-Likes: 0-Comments: 0-Categories: Silent Library-Tags: Props, willkrause, candyland

At first I tried making this breakaway glass TV screen out of expensive plastic casting materials, but to keep things within our budget I switched to a sugar-glass recipe. I made a silicone rubber mold of the actual TV screen, so that the mold could be carefully flexed away from the screen without cracking. The [...]

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Silent Library – Indian Burn Machine

Posted: June 30, 2010-Likes: 0-Comments: 1-Categories: Propmaking, Silent Library-Tags: silent library, Props, willkrause

Designing and building this machine was one of my biggest challenges on Silent Library. Figuring out a way for the hands to rotate around a point where I could place no pivots was tricky - so I made a semicircular track for a set of rollerskate wheels, and attached a pair of silicone hands to [...]

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Silent Library – Egg Gatling Gun

Posted: June 30, 2010-Likes: 0-Comments: 0-Categories: Propmaking, Silent Library-Tags: Props, willkrause, foam

My task on this project was creating an automatic mechanism that would fire a dozen eggs at contestants on Silent Library. I experimented with a tennis-ball-style launcher first, but settled on a gatling gun setup, powered by a disassembled t-shirt gun. The revolver chamber is made out of sections of PVC tubing ringed with UVA [...]

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Silent Library – Wrecking Ball Crane

Posted: June 30, 2010-Likes: 0-Comments: 0-Categories: Propmaking, Silent Library-Tags: silent library, Props, willkrause

This seven-foot-tall crane was made to strike game show contestants in the groin with a sand-filled plastic wrecking ball. The frame is made from steel, with plywood panels, heater vents,  lawnmower wheels, and some video arcade switches. Courtland Premo helped with the electrical system, and I managed to hit the poor contestant in the groin [...]

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Silent Library – Phony Ostrich Eggs

Posted: June 30, 2010-Likes: 0-Comments: 0-Categories: Propmaking, Silent Library-Tags: Props, willkrause, silent library

This was a fun challenge! The writers for Silent Library wanted to hit the contestants with ostrich eggs... but since ostrich eggs are expensive and are so hard that they need to be opened with a hammer, I needed to create some fake ostrich eggs that would make a mess and not kill anyone. I [...]

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Silent Library – Wheel of Rulers

Posted: June 30, 2010-Likes: 0-Comments: 0-Categories: Propmaking, Silent Library-Tags: silent library, Props, willkrause

I cast my hand a whole bunch of times on the third season of Silent Library - in this case, six times to make a machine to slap contestants with rulers. The vinyl rulers are sewn to the hands with fishing line so that they don't go flying off in dangerous directions, and the wheel [...]

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Silent Library – Tennis Ball Bike

Posted: December 20, 2009-Likes: 0-Comments: 0-Categories: Propmaking, Silent Library-Tags: Props, willkrause, silent library

This bicycle was rebuilt from a machine that was used the previous season. I only ended up using a few pieces from the original machine since it functioned in a very different way - the contestants needed to be hit in the face instead of the groin, so the new machine needed to be completely [...]

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Silent Library – Noogie Machine

Posted: November 20, 2009-Likes: 0-Comments: 0-Categories: Propmaking, Silent Library-Tags: Props, willkrause, silent library

I cast my hands in silicone rubber with a wooden dowel inside each knuckle. The hands were attached to two drills, and I made a crane mechanism that would lower the fists slowly towards the contestant's head. It made a girl cry! (not because it hurt her, but rather because it mussed up her hair [...]

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Silent Library – Dizzy Machine

Posted: November 4, 2009-Likes: 0-Comments: 0-Categories: Propmaking, Silent Library-Tags: silent library, Props, willkrause

This machine was made out of a giant turntable with a truck hub inside, and some bike parts. All of the smooth bearings make it pretty easy to turn fast enough to make a contestant barf. Becky Holmes painted the machine with some pretty amazing paints and made the whole thing look like it was [...]

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